


Just This Year

by PartyLines



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Christmas, Emotional Hurt, Fluff - where did that come from?, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Rose's Letter, Strictly Dramione's Yuletide Magic 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PartyLines/pseuds/PartyLines
Summary: Rose Weasley asks Santa for something special for Christmas.Written for Strictly Dramione's Yuletide Magic 2018 Christmas Fest.





	1. Christmas Eve 2018

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my goodness, this piece gave me troubles! I drafted it so quickly and then struggled to wrangle it into line. HEre it is though! 
> 
> My prompt was: _Prompt: Rose asking for a daddy for Christmas in a letter sent to Santa. Written in Rose’s POV but not necessarily in first person. No Dark!Draco, Dub-Con, Non-Con. Rated T or lower._
> 
>  
> 
> Huge thank yous to my wonderful alpha, **zoomzoomzuppa** for encouraging me to do something different, and to the amazing **bourbonrain** for doing a perfect beta job at the final hour! Of course, thanks to the mods/admin team at SD for hosting such a fun fest!

 

It’s early evening when Rose returns to the graveyard. She’s alone this time. She struggles to pull a rolled-up-blanket out of her bag so that she can sit beside the headstone almost hidden amongst so many others and capped with snow from last night’s fall.

Ron Weasley never did _really_ recover from the war.

When his second child left for Hogwarts, the large house that once seemed like proof of his _becoming_ something and the wife who was everything he _ever_ wanted became silhouettes of emptiness instead. The ghosts of memories long passed grew to inhabit every room in the house and every crevice of his mind. The whiskey dulled the murmurs, but it dulled the brightness in Hermione’s eyes, too, until her pluck was reduced to nothing more than steady continuance and her resentment grew until it filled her.

That was when the war came back for him; finally claimed him as its own.

Rose thinks the war steals _something_ from everyone eventually. That’s what her mum says anyway, and everyone knows that Hermione Weasley is always, _always_ right.

Rose doesn’t cry this time – as she had when they buried him earlier in the year – with the younger Hugo glaring at his mother and clinging to Uncle Harry. She’s sure her father’s been gone for far longer than Ron’s been buried – everyone knows, even if they won’t say – and the whip-sharp and _too-strong_ thirteen-year-old had mourned him long ago. She’s come for his permission; for one last whisper of his explosive love, and the echo of one of those can’t-say-no-grins he used to save just for her.

He’d hate the question, but Rose knows that after all this time his quick temper would fade fast into acceptance so long as it means that she’s happy; that they’re _all_ taken-care-of.

He’d accept it so long as _Mum_ is happy.

 _Merlin,_ her dad loved her mum; he loved her even in the end, when he no longer remembered _how_. It was instinctual – planted like a seed and grown into his bones until it melted into his blood and seeped from his pores. Ron would’ve signed away his life to see Hermione smile again.

In a way, that’s exactly what he did.

 

* * *

 

Swiping at her eyes and at the snowy residue building on the stone, Rose shifts on her blanket and pulls a sheaf of parchment and eagle-feather quill from her bag. The soft trilling of birds in the chilly twilight air brings her peace that’s at odds with her heart. She digs absently in the snowy earth beside her as she thinks: dirt filling her nailbeds and frosty cold numbing her fingertips. Tiny tufts of buffalo have grown up around the graves – glistening with perfectly formed dew-drops. It’s as though they’re crying for the dead and for the lost – constant mourners – and it’s renewing.

She smiles despite herself and thinks of her mum. She can’t recall the last time she saw her mother smile – really smile in that way that makes her beautiful; makes her irises _shimmer_ with youth. There was one time maybe – a few years ago – when Scorpius’ dad had walked her home from a Ministry affair. She’d been smiling then. She’d been smiling in such a way that it’d made Ron so mad that Rose and Hugo had stayed with Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny for days.

It had happened again – not too long after – when Mr. Malfoy had picked Rose up from the platform at King's Cross at the end of her first year at Hogwarts. He’d dropped her to St. Mungo’s because Ron was sick, and her mother had smiled that light-up-grin through the glass. Her father’s hoarse shouting had spilled out into the waiting-room and bounced off the sterile-white walls.

_“Why the hell has that bastard got my daughter, Hermione?”_

_“Someone had to pick her up, Ron!” There’s a stomping sound and Rose imagines her mother’s heeled foot hitting the floor, leaving behind a tiny, square imprint of her rage. “I’m here with you and Harry’s working. Ginny’s got all the others –_ including _Scorpius - at Godric’s Hollow, and he off –.”_

 _“He looks awfully comfortable with my daughter, Hermione. I don’t know what’s going on in that blasted office of yours, but he needs to be made_ very _aware that even if he has my wife, Rose is not his daughter!” Rose cringes as her father hisses and sputters, his voice hardened with hate and hurt and that_ soul-splitting _pleading_.

_Silence._

_“Sometimes, Ronald, I wish she was.”_

_Hermione backs out of the room, almost toppling over a little boy in his pram. She's at once radiating spite, anger and disappointment which electrify her gait into choppy, sharp strides. Rose doesn’t miss the lonely tear rolling down her flushed cheek as she turns and flees toward the nearest fireplace._

_Afterwards, silence lingers in the air; thick like treacle and suffocating. Mr. Malfoy pauses for a moment and wraps Rose in his lean arms (so much narrower than her father’s burly, comforting ones), and Disapparates._

_When they arrive at Aunt Ginny’s, she takes Rose into the lounge for tea and directs Mr. Malfoy up the stairs with a nod of her head and a sidelong glance._

_“She’s with Harry,” she’d whispers. Rose hears anyway._

_They return home the next weekend and it’s as though nothing had happened. Ron greets them at the door with his infectious (ingenuous) cheer and a quirk of his mouth that says, “I’m sorry” and everyone pretends he feels it._

 

* * *

 

 

Rose smiles as she pulls an errant clump of grass from the edge of her father’s grave: he really had _tried_ to outrun the claws of the war. Positioning her quill atop the parchment, she takes one last look at the fog misting around her and begins.

 _“Dear Santa,”_ she writes in the neat, round script Ron had insisted she copy off her mother. Rose knows she’s too old for letters to Santa, but she can _feel_ her father nodding his approval; wrapping his warmth around her and smiling reluctantly.

He always did try to do the right thing for his family.

Rose dips the pointed-nib of the quill back into the ink-well, fussing with the curves of the feather until they lay in straight, tidy lines.

_“I’ve never written to you before, so I do hope it’s alright that I do it now. It’s just that it’s always seemed so foolish and whimsical before. I think I could use a little whimsy right now. I’m not being selfish – I promise. I’m writing on behalf of Hugo, really. And mum. Maybe more so mum._

_Our dad died this year, you see – but that’s not really true. I think his_ body _died this year, because my Dad died a long time ago – inside. Uncle Harry told me all about the war. Mum told me how much it took. Scorpius’ dad told me that the war took some of him, and that it took my dad too._

_I think he’s right._

_Anyway. I have only one request this year, Santa. I want to see my mother laugh. I want to see her cheeks puff out and her eyes pour with_ happy _tears and hear the sound she used to make when Daddy did something silly._

_I know it sounds impossible – I thought so too – but sitting here with Dad I found the answer. He agrees – I know he does – even though he’d never tell. I need something from you, Santa. Something that’ll make Mum laugh and help Hugo learn not to be so angry with her all the time. Something that will make it feel like Christmas._

_Santa, could you please bring me a new dad?_

_I understand it’s a rather large gift, so I won’t be disappointed if you can’t manage it, but I know there’s at least one boy out there who needs a mum for Christmas, too. Maybe he could share mine, because she’s the best in the business – I know from experience. His dad isn’t too bad, either._

_Hopefully yours,_

_Rose Minerva Weasley.”_

 

Rose sighs as she checks the letter for errors before rolling it into a tight scroll. Tying the red ribbon she’d brought along around it, she tries to wipe away the tears that make splotches of ink seep through the parchment and letters smudge into streaks of years-old-grief. It’s too late though; they’re falling quickly now, and it seems symbolic. 

When the scroll is secure, Rose lays it on her father’s grave. She takes out the awful hand-knitted three-headed-dog he’d made for her himself during one of his creative phases. It’s horrible and lumpy and the heads had given her nightmares at first, but she hugs it close. It’s _home._

She really, _really_ loves that dog.  

The breeze picks up and a dusting of snow cools her clammy skin just before the wind picks up her scroll. She tries to catch it but it’s futile – it’s too high; moving too fast – as it’s swept away as though by magic, disappearing somewhere behind the line of pines that fill the air with the smell of Christmas. For a moment it steals her breath – she isn’t ready; doesn’t want to be. Then it’s done, and it’s _right._

It feels like letting go.

It feels like holding on.

As her determination turns to grief and sadness and _hope,_ Rose could swear she hears her father’s hearty laughter ring in her ears. It’s self-deprecating and a little bitter, but mostly, it’s love.

 

She walks away with her head held high and, when she gets home, she’s the one to cook dinner. Hermione is staring, without seeing, at photographs; arms wrapped around a Chudley Cannons jumper and her face is stained with dried tears. Hugo sits on the couch opposite his mother and glares at her as though her heartbreak is an intentional sleight against him.

As soon as dinner is done, Rose calls Aunt Ginny, and she and Hugo spend Christmas Eve with Uncle Harry and their cousins, while Ginny tries to tame Hermione’s pain.  Rose thinks it’s silly. She knows – at only thirteen – that grief insists on being felt.

She thinks that as an adult, Aunt Ginny should know this too.


	2. Christmas Day 2018

The door creaks into the quiet as Rose pushes it open just before sunrise. Hugo – still sporting his disgruntled expression and wary stance – steps inside just in front of her, and Uncle Harry and his brood follow. The gentle melody of Celestina Warbeck’s most melancholy Christmas songs dampens the air, and Rose finds it difficult to catch her breath as she searches for her mother in the darkened living room.  

Hermione’s on the couch – exactly where they’d left her the evening before – with Aunt Ginny curled up in an armchair beside her, reading quietly from a book that looks as old as time itself. There’s a clattering noise in the kitchen, but Rose ignores it and heads straight for her mother. She wraps petite, freckled arms around her and presses a kiss to her sticky forehead. She knows it isn’t what her mother’s pining for, but it’s _something._

“Your father’s in the kitchen,” Hermione mumbles, one hand coming up to absently embrace her daughter. “Breakfast, I think.”

Rose stumbles back and tries to mask the horror that widens her eyes and makes her limbs chill so quickly she trembles. “Mum?” She whispers. “Mum… what are you -.”

 

Jumping up from her seat, Aunt Ginny ushers all five children into the dining room with a firm tug of Rose’s arm. Rose looks from her mother to Uncle Harry, but Harry’s easy smile and tiny nod give her the courage to go with the others. She knows he’ll look after her mum; knows if anyone can make her smile today, it’s Uncle Harry.

She’s so taken aback by the vast array of decorations and platters and delicate table-settings that’d been added overnight that she doesn’t notice a scowling Scorpius until she’s sitting right beside him. He’s stiff and unsure but offers her a quick quirk of his mouth when she sits down.

“Hey,” he mutters, scooting his chair over so that she has enough elbow room. He’s always been nice to her – despite the warnings she’d received from her family – and she smiles in return.

“Hey,” she says, her eyes roaming the group who all seem to understand, except maybe for Hugo, who looks as though he’s about to spontaneously combust in frustration and anger and hurt. “Why’re you here?” Her voice is sharp, and she hopes he knows it isn’t really aimed at him.

“Your aunt called my dad.” He shrugs, pulling a slice of toast stamped with a decorative Christmas Tree onto his plate. “She thought your mum could use some company. _My_ mum’s still reeling from the divorce, so Dad thought it’d be best if I spend Christmas with him this year.”

Rose watches with intrigue as Scorpius slathers his toast in butter and strawberry preserve but she doesn’t comment.

“Guess that means spending it with you guys now, too,” he adds, just before taking a bite.

 

Rose can’t focus on what he’s saying – she’s too busy being mortified by his dreadful manners.

 _Didn’t he_ know, _being from a family like his, that no one eats until everyone is at the table?_ Especially _on Christmas Day._  

She nods along anyway, but her attention strays further when Scorpius’ father edges out of the kitchen – waving awkwardly at the Weasley and Potter children as he passes – with his gaze trained on the incoherent witch tangled in Harry’s arms.

“Granger,” he murmurs, his voice almost inaudible as he moves farther away from the kitchen. “Granger, breakfast is waiting.”

There’s a long pause before Hermione turns away from Uncle Harry and allows herself to be pulled into the waiting arms of Mr Malfoy. He tucks her snuggly into his side as he bends around to whisper something to Harry; _begs_ something from Harry. His eyes have that glazed sheen Rose has come to associate with her mother and important dates – something hard and stony that thinly conceals the anguish. It makes Rose cringe – knowing that the claws that took her father are spreading – and she’s almost forced to turn away.

She can’t though; can’t keep her eyes from the man who isn’t her father but who _is_ keeping her mother upright. When Hermione sighs and relaxes into Mr Malfoy’s grasp, there’s a flash of recognition in her blank expression and a brilliant spark lights his face.

 

“Ronald,” Hermione scolds, swatting at the hand around her waist. “I’m completely capable of walking myself to breakfast, thank you.”

Mr Malfoy turns away and Uncle Harry sighs deeply when their eyes lock. Rose straightens at the sound of her mother’s voice: proud and strong and everything it’s supposed to be, but hasn’t been for so long. She shrinks at her words; feels the burning of the pain she’d pushed away scratching at her throat. _No, Mum. No, he’s not Ronald. He’s not Dad,_ she thinks, still unable to look away. _He’s not Dad, but he’s_ here _and Dad isn’t._

“Are you planning on being so stubborn all day, Granger?” Mr Malfoy asks, the barest hint of mischief tugging on his mouth and softening his face so that he almost doesn’t look like himself. “Let a man feel useful, won’t you? The least I can do is escort the lady to her seat.” He continues as though everything is normal, and Rose doesn’t know whether to admire his tenacity or hate him for intervening.

Hermione chuckles though, and the sound – despite being hoarse and dry and out-of-use – is so beautiful that Rose can’t stop herself from smiling.  “Since when have you been such a gentleman, Ron?” Hermione asks as Mr Malfoy sits her down in the free chair beside Hugo and takes the one on the other side for himself. “It’s not like you at all.”

The glazed look comes back and the hitch in Mr Malfoy’s breath gives Rose pause. _How dare he be annoyed? What right does he have to even be here? He_ isn’t _Dad, and his allowing this façade is just wrong, wrong, wrong._ Still, she bristles when Aunt Ginny open her mouth to intervene. Hermione hasn’t laughed in so long – _no one’s_ allowed to take it away – not for anything.

 

“You’re not our Dad,” Hugo snarls from her right before she can stop him. “Mum! Wake up. Mr Malfoy is _not_ our Dad, and he’s _not_ your Ron!”

Blistering nothingness fills the room

Moments later, Hermione’s heaving, shattering, _breaking_ sobs fill the void, and Hugo has the good grace to look ashamed.

“I know,” Hermione stammers through her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

* * *

 

The rest of Christmas day is quiet. Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry shrink the presents down and pop them into pockets, rounding up the children as they do. Uncle Harry kisses the top of Hermione’s head, nods to Mr Malfoy and takes Scorpius by the shoulder. “How about Christmas with the Potters?” he asks the boy, who glances at the way his father is draped around the woman curled into a ball on the cool tiled floor and gives a solemn nod.

They leave Hermione and Mr Malfoy with pats-on-backs and “Merry Christmas’,” and take the floo back to Grimmauld Place. Rose rubs her hand over Hugo’s back, even as she’s glaring at him, and whispers, “It’s just this year, Hugh. Next time she’ll really be okay.”

As the younger boy sniffles back his tears, Rose pleads to her father that she’s telling the truth.


	3. Christmas Day 2019

Rose wakes with the sun to the sounds of tinkling laughter and something sizzling in a pan. The smell of bacon and toast and fresh pumpkin juice carries her from her bedroom and onto the landing, overlooking _someone else’s_ life.

Hermione – in her favourite baby-blue flannel pyjamas and her greying hair loose around her shoulders – is sprawled on the couch with a steaming cup of tea in her hand and Hugo perched on her feet. Her head is thrown back against the cushions - eyes bright and almost closed - and she’s laughing so hard she’s squeezing her thighs together and slopping tea on the floor.

Hugo grins broadly in a brilliant imitation of a father he never _really_ knew, and Christmas Carols flood the room.

 

“Rosie!” Hugo calls, using the name that no one’s dared use in almost two years. “Rosie, get down here sleepyhead, it’s Christmas!”

Only just awake and slightly shaken by what she’s watching, Rose pads downstairs in bare feet with her doona wrapped around her, hiding the quiver of excitement that wakes her sleepy muscles. There’s a clanging noise in the kitchen, and for a moment Rose is certain the she’s dreaming and Ron is about to walk into view.

He doesn’t, of course, but the clanging continues, along with a throaty chuckle and a smash and a curse. “Granger!” A voice calls out. “Why on earth are your cupboards so obscenely _full_?”

Scorpius comes bounding out from the kitchen, carrying a tray laden with bacon and little boxes of cereal, and Hermione is laughing again. “Goodness knows, Draco,” she says between gasps. “I haven’t used them in a long time. _Too_ long, I think.”

 

When Mr Malfoy comes in behind his son – a second stack of bowls and a flagon of milk floating behind him – Rose could swear he winks at her. He places his offerings down on the coffee table and leans down to take Hermione’s face between his long fingers. He captures her joy in his mouth as he presses a kiss to her lips, his thumb grazing her flushed cheek as he pulls back to flash her a smile, one eyebrow raised and his head cocking slightly to the side.

Hugo seems torn; pleased by his mother’s mood but hurt because the wrong man has brought it on. Scorpius is eyeing his dad with some kind of tacit acceptance. Rose sinks to the floor, her eyes filling with tears, and laughter bubbling up in her chest to mirror Hermione’s.

 

“Looks like Santa’s been, kids,” Hermione says, squirming her way out of Draco’s embrace so that she can sit up and point to the tree. “Rosie?” She adds, Scorpius and Hugo already diving for the presents. “He left something special for you.”

Rose is hesitant as she takes the envelope from her mother, but Hermione is all smiles, and even Mr Malfoy gives her a gentle – if stilted – pat on the back. She excuses herself and takes it back to her bedroom to read.

 

* * *

 

_“Dear Rose Minerva Weasley,_

_It’s taken me some time to fulfil your request, but I suspect you will be satisfied. Do you think Mr Malfoy will do? It’s only that he rather forcefully volunteered for the job, or I would’ve been happy to look elsewhere. His application states his love for your mother and his intentions to make you and Hugo part of his family very clearly. He insists that he has cared a great deal for all three of you for a very long time and has simply been awaiting the right opportunity._

_His application for the position came with only two stipulations._

_One: Neither you nor Hugo ever fear that he is attempting to replace something lost. He wishes instead to be a part of something new, and to help you all remember the old with fondness._

_Two: He wishes to ask permission for your mother’s hand in marriage. He feels that if you are to have a new father, then she should have a new love as well._

_Merry Christmas, Rose Weasley. Please send your response with Santa’s Elf immediately._

_Hopefully yours,_

_‘Santa’”_

 

Rose almost doesn’t notice the appearance of the house-elf through her elated tears as she tries to decipher just _why_ Santa’s handwriting seems so familiar. Her stomach leaps and her heart races, but the elf clears her throat expectantly.

“I is being Pippy, Miss, of the House of Malfoy-Greengrass, and I is needing your reply at once.”


End file.
